Business PlanTemplateEvery social enterprise needs a business plan. However, every social enterprise is different and your business plan should be developed to reflect your own enterprise in the best possible way. Following a prescriptive business plan template is unlikely to lead to a good business plan. However, we realise that it can be difficult to know where to start and for that reason, we have provided a framework of some common and useful business plan sections. Under each heading, we have described some of the points you might want to cover in this section. Bear in mind that one business plan may not be appropriate for several audiences, so consider having different versions for different people e.g. you may have a more comprehensive businessplan for internal management purposes and a shorter version for investors or key supporters. Using appendices to provide detailed supplementary information where necessary, can be a useful way of maintaining a consistent format across different versions of the same business plan. It can often be useful to have a look at other people’s business plans to pick up ideas about format and structure, or even just to notice where other people have gone wrong! You should also think about using photos and other visual images to help break up the text of your business plan, particularly if you have photos of your social enterprise ‘in action’. 1.Executive SummaryThis is the first thing most people will read and it’s your chance to make a good first impression. Your aim is to hook people in so they want to find out more about your social enterprise. This section should be short and snappy, giving a brief overview of what your social enterprise does, where you are at the moment, where you want to go and how you will get there. 2.The Social EnterpriseThis is where you introduce the key facts about your social enterprise –the name, contact details, legal status, start date, structure and a few sentences to describe your business idea, your product or service and the social aims of the enterprise. 3.The OrganisationIf your social enterprise is part of a larger organisation, it can be helpful to include a section about the background of the organisation, its aims and key details like number of years of operating, annual turnover, number of staff and management structure. 4.The MarketIn this section, you should summarise what you have learned from your market research and analysis and then describe how you will apply this learning in your own marketingand sales efforts. It can be helpful to arrange this in two sub-sections as follows: Market Analysis Who will buy your products or servicesWhy they will buy from you (your unique selling point)Trends in your market that you have identified from research
Levels and types of competition in your marketResults of any market testing you have doneLessons from similar businesses including social enterprisesMarketing Strategy You should describe the key elements of your marketing strategy (i.e. how you will respond to the learning above), including Your routes to market (e.g. how will you distribute your products or services, including e-commerce options)PricingPromotional mixCustomer care policyCustomer feedbackWho will be involved in marketingHow much you have budgeted for marketing5.Social ImpactIn this section, you should summarise how you will make a difference i.e. what is the ‘social’ in your social enterprise? Areas to cover include:Who will benefit from your social enterprise?Why is your social enterprise needed?How will your social enterprise meet that need?Your training and employment support model for people excluded from the labour marketHow you are working with different partnersWho are your stakeholders and what typeof consultation have you done with them?How will you measure your social impact and have you budgeted for this?You may want to include a detailed stakeholder analysis and table of intended outcomes and activities as an appendix, or you may simply wish to reference this and say that it is available on request. 6.Business Development This section is where you should summarise what you’ve learned about what you need to do to maximise the chances of your social enterprise succeeding. You should identify:Key issues in the external business environment that may affect youKey issues in relation to your internal strengths and weaknessesKey issues which affect the industry you operate inThe main critical success factors you have identified and your strategies to address theseMuch of the information from this section will come from the analyses you carried out during the Exploration stage, including your SWOT and PEST analyses and any feasibility study you completed. Rather than including all of that information in this section, you may prefer to summarise the key points and then include the more detailed documents as appendices.